Shadow Affinity – wtf???

Shadow affinity is useless in pvp. However, if you’re going to do a lot of instance play with your shadow priest, it’s invaluable.

See, a hard limit facing you is aggro. Assuming you’re wise enough to stay at range, you are restricted to 130% the tank’s threat production — approximately double his damage for rule of thumb work — to keep from pulling the mob off. And since you’re no longer “the healer”, your “save me” priority just dropped to somewhere around mage/warlock level. If you don’t want to die, don’t pull the mobs off the tank.

The problem is that it’s easy to get your mojo working – really and seriously stacking the damage. The answer is Shadow Affinity.

Let’s assume that your tank is doing about 500 dps (should do more if you’re higher, but we’re keeping the math simple). This means he’s generating about 1000 threat. You’re capped at 1300 dps – make it 1200 or so to avoid drawing from crits. Given shadowform and weaving and darkness and, well, several other talents and gear, 1200 is well below what you’re capable of generating. Enter three points in shadow affinity. “Reduces the threat generated by your Shadow spells by 25%.” Which means I can do 1600 dps and “only” generate 1200 threat.

Reread that. I can increase my damage level by a third without pulling aggro.

Warning. ONLY DO THIS if you intend to spend time in INSTANCES. Players don’t care about “aggro”. Solo mobs don’t care, either.

re my prior post, yeah, I’m going to be doing a fair share of pvp arena, which makes this a daring choice. However, I’ve got some instances I want to run as well – lots of them, actually. Thus the choice.

About…

I've experience with many priests of many races and specs on several servers. The more I play, the more I realize how much I do not yet know. This is a share of some of what I have learned.
My main these days is Zingiber on the Undermine server.